William Carlos Williams and the Diagnostics of Culture [Hardcover]

Bremen's study examines the development of William Carlos Williams's poetics, focusing in particular on Williams's ongoing fascination with the effects of poetry and prose, and his life-long friendship with Kenneth Burke. Using a framework based on Burke's and Williams's theoretical writings and correspondence, as well as on the work of contemporary cultural critics, Bremen looks closely at how Williams's poetic strategies are intimately tied to his medical practice, incorporating a form of methodological empiricism that extends his diagnoses beyond the individual to include both language and community. The book develops a series of rhetorical, cognitive, medical, and political analogues that clarify the poetic and cultural achievements Williams hoped to realize in his writing.

A valuable addition to Williams scholarship. Bremen's readings of individual books and poems are challenging, consistent, and illuminating. The chapter on Williams and medicine is one of the finest pieces I have read on the poet. It will be required reading for scholars of Williams. --Christopher MacGowan,College of William and Mary